Nancy Drew Treasure In The Royal Tower for Windows

I played this game first some years ago when I first got into the Nancy Drew game genera and now again since it had been so long I'd forgotten much of it. Both times were a royal treat!

There are several things I love about all Nancy Drew games which holds true in this game as well:
1) You always come away learning somethings you didn't know before.
2) You always get to go places you've never been.
3) Snooping in other people's stuff is so much fun.
4) Having all the little 'help' features handy makes the self guided adventure more fun and less frustrating.

As with all the games, there is a jump-in-where-you-are atmosphere. You don't feel stupid if this is your first game you've played since they have a tutorial in the beginning of every game telling you how to move around and look for clues as well as collect and use evidence and talk to people.

Upon starting the game, you can choose Junior or Senior detective. Junior provides more clues to go on than Senior. For example when Nancy approaches and notices something, in Junior she will say something like, "It looks like someone cut the wires." In Senior she will merely observe the item and say nothing. Also in Junior the puzzles you have to decode or games you play will be easier or contain less pieces than in the Senior version. Having the choice of both Junior and Senior allows for a wider audience to enjoy the same game in different ways.

So in this particular game, you, as Nancy Drew are going on a much needed vacation to Butter Ridge, Wisconsin in a huge old castle to go skiing. Of course in the course of the way a huge blizzard rolls in making skiing impossible. While waiting for the storm to blow over, you hear there has been vandalism overtaking the castle and of course decide to investigate.

The cast: Your investigations lead you to meet Dexter, the old caretaker, Lisa a reporter journalist visiting the castle, Jacques a retired famous skier who works in ski rentals in the basement and an eccentric lady historian named Professor Hotchkiss who stays in her room a lot of the time (or does she??). All have secret agendas and something to hide. Your job is to find out their connection to the castle and the castle's connection to the past.

The History: The history lesson is a great one teaching you more about Marie Antoinette than you may have known previously. It involves a beheading, a royal diamond tiara and a secret locked up tower where she used to hide out. At game's end you feel like you know her personally.

The Places: There are clues left all over the huge castle for you to find with lots of unexplained dead ends. There are 3 floors to explore as well as outside. Upstairs on the second floor there are the rooms and corridors and many secret passageways to discover. On the first floor there is the front desk and hallway to explore and snoop as well as the lounge with a fireplace and books to read. Further down more corridors you'll find a library which is off limits (unless of course you can be sneaky and find a way in without getting caught - wink wink). Take another path or the elevator and go into the basement where there are even more creepy corridors and then the not so creepy area where Jacques rents out the ski equipment and everyone's lockers are (let the snooping begin!) Visit certain areas at night and you'll experience things you don't during the day which will lead to more investigation and discoveries. Then of course there are the secret passages. I cannot tell you where these come in because I don't want to ruin the element of surprise but let me tell you there are plenty to discover. Later in the game you are permitted to go outside in the snow and explore both a secret garden as well as a dusty old shed where the ski lift controls are at. Lots of surprises are contained in there.

The helps: You can call your trusty friends Ned Nickerson and Bess and George on the phone in your room 24/7 and they'll give you hints as to what to do if you ever get stuck or have hit a wall so to speak. To progress in the game, you must call and speak with them periodically too and it helps you know what's going on to hear Nancy reiterate all you have found and seen on your journey so far. Be sure to also pay attention to your phone voicemail light. Many times in the game the light will notify you that someone's left a message for you, which may come in handy especially if you say the wrong thing and tick someone off and they won't speak to you in person.

Also, you must continually go and talk to the cast members in the castle to help you progress in the game. There are several times that different people will help you in times of need and other times when they will hurt you unexpectedly, but it is necessary to progress through the game.

The other help is your alarm clock in your room. There will be times when you are needing it to be a certain time of day so you can meet someone or talk to someone. Set your clock and it will wake you up at that time so you can proceed with your mission right away.

Another help is the Second Chance feature. There will be times when you mess up and either get yourself killed by various means or get yourself caught in a compromising position and they think you're the bad guy. In either of these situations the Second Chance feature will bail you out. So if something bad happens and it takes you to the menu screen click Second chance and do it right the second time.

One word of advice: Save your game and save often! As a rule, I save after every major accomplishment (getting through a tough puzzle or game sequence) or after every new item I acquire in my inventory. then if for some reason the power blinks off and you lose your game you are at least not having to start all over again.

Now my grades on the basics of the game. I thought the graphics were awesome and the details and colors very rich. There were little scratches in the wooden elevator that made it look real and the characters faces seemed real enough right down to the shine of Lisa's lipgloss on her lips and the character lines and wrinkles on Professor Hotchkiss' face. I found all the details enthralling and it made you feel like you were really there.

Also the sound effects are great - banging, ringing of the telephone, voices, blowing of the wind against your window panes, hissing of your radiator and movements of the elevator, all fantastic.

The characters were believable and quite funny at times. Because of the newness of my computer and how old the game is, at times the speech didn't match up to when the lips were moving, but it was forgivable.

THE BAD: My biggest beef with this game was the movements. You had to move your mouse all over the screen to find the arrow hotspot, the place where the arrow would turn into a forward arrow and this area moved according to which room you were in. In some rooms it would be at the top of the screen and some middle and some at the bottom. Also sometimes it had a right or left arrow that you could hold down to spin around 360 degrees, but other times it wasn't present.

Looking around a room was frustrating because of these movement flaws. When exploring areas for example you'd move up close to a desk and pick up and look at something and then you'd like to just reach over and look at something next to the desk which you could see clearly, but it wouldn't allow it. Instead you had to back up and then come forward again directly in front of the item you wished to explore. Because of this method it was easy to miss exploring areas you should and it took quite a while to explore certain areas which was frustrating to say the least. With some areas you could enter only in one direction and not from another which could give you the false impression that you could not explore that area at all. Thankfully in later games HER Interactive corrected these issues, but in this game you just have to deal with it.

Speaking of exploring it had a helpful feature present in all games: When viewing something of interest your magnifying glass icon turns red notifying you to look closer and a click brings it into view.

As for the rest, the plot was fantastic with multiple twists and turns to keep you guessing made for an exciting game. I never got bored with this game once and the length was perfect. If you play hard at work with the game and keep at it, it will last you anywhere from 2 days to a week or two, depending on how much time you have to spend with it. It is a fantastic game to play along with friends or a parent child team up since two heads are better than one and this game takes thinking a lot of times.

My recommendation is that this game is money well spent for adults and children and you will want to hold onto this game because it is fun to play time and again and with different people noting their reactions. It is also great for slumber party team ups with an element of creepiness but not excessively scary and no gore. After playing this game you will no doubt be hooked into the Nancy Drew world of PC gaming and be scrambling to play all of the others.
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Question and Answer Response regarding my review:

QUESTION: I'm a little confused about a couple things to do with this game. I'm wondering what kinds of puzzles there are in the game, and if there's a battle system at all since you say the people in the game harm you. Are these enemies you fight or something? Are you able to heal Nancy Drew if she gets injured? Also, is this a point-and-click adventure game?

Let me know by e-mail or responding here if you can update your review with more info on these things, and I'll come back then to re-rate your review when you're finished.

Answer:Sometimes it is Jigsaw type puzzles like mosaic squares you can turn and try to assemble, trial and error kinds of puzzles like figuring out how to work an unconventional lock, sometimes it's a logic problem that you have to solve (like you have to get from point A to point B and the usual paths are blocked, so how will you get around the problem? Put on your thinking cap!) Then some others are trivia questions which you can figure out answers to by reading available books and putting two and two together. Also there are clues which you have to figure out that will help you figure out what to do with the various items you collect in the game (like some items actually become a key of sorts, but you'd never know it without reading and deciphering the clues.) There are also times where you must decode things. Of course the help features can help you with these things if you get stuck. Also herinteractive.com has message boards to help if the in game clues don't help you.

No, I wouldn't call it a battle system. I guess you could say you must outwit the opponent to prevent escape or things like that. There are a few times Nan gets harmed in the game (like a whack on the head unexpectedly), but just like in the books she recovers in an instant and without your help. Sometimes harm doesn't come from opponents but from obstacles and making bad decisions (like trying to jump across an elevator shaft for instance.) But the Second Chance feature gives you an instant way to go back to the moment right before you messed up so you can get it right and the Second Chance feature is unlimited so you can keep doing whatever the task is until you complete it.

As for Point and Click yes I guess you could refer to it as that, but it is very much more complex and rich in detail than say a Flash game and there are dozens of rooms to explore.